Simple, Bare-Bones Motherboards?

basic0 writes "After my Windows box recently lost its life in a puff of awful smelling smoke, I tracked the fault to the motherboard. Now I'm in the market for a replacement board, but all the boards I find seem to be all-in-one models with on-board everything. I already have a good graphics card, NIC, USB audio device, etc. I just need a no-frills motherboard like I used to be able to buy. It seems like a waste to buy a board with all the built-in stuff (and probably pay extra for it) when I'm never going to use it. Has anyone else had similar experiences? Do a lot of people actually use the on-board stuff? Is it still possible to purchase a motherboard that's *just* a motherboard?"

Comments

For the most part...

[Sheetrock]

x86 hardware has this all-in-one approach, so I'd say you're pretty much out of luck. Which is a shame because the more they put on the board, the more can go wrong.

Apple builds a lot into a tiny space as well, but their hardware and software is a lot more reliable. That's why most professionals and experts are switching to them.

Re:YES

[Pete Brubaker]

Agreed... What a waste...

Re:YES

[TechnologyX]

I didn't realize SETI was down, mostly because I make the mistake of checking /. for news

Old!

[fm6]

Dupe Articles seem to have interbred with Lame Ask Slashdots to produce Dupe Lame Ask Slashdots. For the last time: something isn't necessarily cheaper because it has fewer features. Leaving off standard features costs more, because speciality hardware costs more, because it has fewer customers.

Re:you paid $80 for a gigabyte board?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you're one of the retards who just HAS to buy Abit or Asus because they're "teh bestest at teh overcl0ck!ng", right?

Re:You'll end up paying more

[Magic5Ball]

This reminds me of another discussion about bundling computer things. Oh, I remember:

It's all right for a big manufacturer of a central piece of hardware essential to almost every computer to kill the market for smaller manufacturers of add-on hardware by integrating common features for free because you can just ignore/disable those, but it's immoral for a manufacturer of a central piece of software essential to almost every computer to bundle common add-on software for free because that would kill the market for the smaller manufacturers'. This, despite the fact that in both cases the integrated stuff is good enough and which use can be trivially disabled by the end-user.

This moral position makes perfect sense now.

Re:You'll end up paying more

[Curien]

I hate Microsoft mostly because I dislike their basic philosophy and begrudge them their power. I also believe that their power was acquired and maintained through unfair -- successful, but unfair -- business practices.